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| Artist’s concept of an exoplanet discovered by Kepler. Image credit: NASA |
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| Image credit: NPS Photo by Kristen Lalumiere |
World leading antitheist Richard Dawkins has once more blasted creationists in an interview in the Wall Street Journal. He took special offence at the Christian creationist involvement in science and society, once again showing no respect or understanding of our common humanity. A day or so later we witnessed another mass killing in American classrooms where a social misfit took his aggression out on his peers, apparently singling out Christians in particular, at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. His social media files suggest an unhealthy interest in guns, violence, the Nazis and the Occult. The targeting of Christians may have happened in other incidents as well, for instance at the Columbine tragedy in 1999.To read the rest, click on "Richard Dawkins, anti-Christian language and the rise of science".
While we cannot directly link Dawkins’ comments to the school shooting, he and other ‘New atheists’ have twisted the perception of Christians, and especially creationists, creating a climate of hatred, ignorance and disrespect in society. Sam Harris wishes to heap such embarrassment upon faith in God that it becomes impossible for people to express their belief. Even Christian evolutionists can’t escape this hatred; evolutionist Michael Reiss was forced out of his position at the Royal Society (UK) simply for calling for respectful dialogue with evolution dissenters in the science classroom (see here). And Dawkins is perhaps the most vocal voice of this aggressive new atheism. If Dawkins spoke of the Jewish community in the way he speaks of Christians he would be labelled anti-Semitic—and rightly so. But what of anti-Christian rhetoric where one’s words may incite hatred of Christians? Do the likes of Dawkins have a responsibility to be more careful in what they say?
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| Zircon in Jack Hills, Australia's Narre Gneiss Terrane Image credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team |
Zircon crystals—little time capsules preserving bits of Earth’s ancient past—have in our recent past given evolutionary scientists a whole new view of conditions on the early Earth. Previously thought to have been a Hadean hell of molten magma for a very long time, the early Earth is now seen in the light of zircon-trapped atoms as a place that cooled enough for water to condense within 160 million years of being spit out of a solar nebula and coalescing as a fiery ball. Now the discovery of flecks of graphite in an Australian zircon crystal has raised the possibility that life evolved very quickly in that ancient world, 300 million years earlier than previously thought.To read the rest, click on "Did Earth’s Earliest Life Leave Carbon Footprints in a 4.1 Billion-Year-Old Zircon?"
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| Image credit: morgueFile / kconnors |
Time to rewrite the textbooks again. Earth started out wet, scientists now claim, overturning decades of dogma.To read the rest, click on "New Earth Ocean Theory Is All Wet". No, you won't need to put on your wellies.
“Earth may have kept its own water rather than getting it from asteroids,” reads a story title in Science Magazine , a summary of a paper in Science. The authors concluded, from divination of lavas on Baffin Island collected in 1985 (Astrobiology Magazine), that the mantle must have gained its water directly from the protoplanetary nebula.
Astronomers had been telling the public for many years that Earth started out dry and got its water from comets. When the deuterium ratio of comet ice turned out to be too high, they had a problem.
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| Image credit: Darryl Leja, NHGR / National Human Genome Research Institute |
One of the biggest problems for evolution is how animal and plant cells, eukaryotes, could have been derived from precursor bacteria-like cells called prokaryotes. Unlike prokaryotes, eukaryotic cells are highly compartmentalized and contain membrane-bound organelles such as the nucleus, mitochondria, and (in plants) chloroplasts that are not found in bacteria or archaea (non-bacterial single-celled prokaryotes). Along with numerous other genetic and molecular differences, these complex cellular organelles not found in prokaryotes, form an unbridgeable gap for evolution to somehow accomplish.To read the rest, click on "Endosymbiosis: A Theory in Crisis".
Evolutionists have long struggled to present a non-speculative explanation for the origin of the eukaryotic cell nucleus and other complex cellular features. One idea that has been quite popular for about 50 years is that mitochondria and chloroplasts were derived from a mythical process called endosymbiosis. The heart of this explanation is the fact that the mitochondrion possesses a small circular piece of DNA containing some of the genes it needs to function, combined with a process of organelle replication. This functional combination looks similar to how bacterial DNA is constructed and how bacteria reproduce, but the appearances are only superficial.
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| Meteor Crater, Arizona / Image credit: NASA |
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| Combined clip-art images from Clker |
Tomas Lindahl from Sweden, Paul Modrich from the United States, and American-Turkish researcher Aziz Sancar were awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for uncovering how cells repair their own DNA.1 DNA repair mechanisms keep us alive, and understanding them undergirds a fuller comprehension of how cells work and fend off the disastrous consequences of too many mutations. The research of these three men implies that cells have always used DNA repair mechanisms, thus uncovering evolutionary mysteries that have not yet found sensible solutions.To read the rest, click on "2015 Nobel Prize Highlights Cell Repair Mystery". Also, see the Genesis Week video, "DNA Fixer Upperer".
Their pioneering work, mostly conducted in the 1970s and 1980s, opened a door to what has become a large research field. Investigators around the world continue to uncover new enzymes and communication networks, including feedback protocols and cellular subroutines, all aimed at protecting DNA. Good thing this happens in every cell on the planet, because otherwise DNA would lose vital information.
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| Image credit: Pixabay / geralt |
Evolutionists take swipes at saying the most complex matter in the universe is a product of blind, aimless processes of nature.To read the rest, head on over to "The Mind and Brain: Evolved or Created?"
Did sight emerge from blindness without wanting to? Did thinking emerge from irrational matter? These are the propositions evolutionists must accept in their attempts to build a human brain from nonliving solids and fluids, and ultimately from a nothingness that exploded. Let’s look at some evolutionary perspectives on the mind, then consider discoveries that point to creation.
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| Juvenile hadrosaur / Pavel Bochkov / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 |
In late September of this year a report was published on a new species of Hadrosaurid dinosaur (commonly and hereafter called duck-billed dinosaurs) dubbed Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis (“ancient grazer” in the language of Alaska Inupiat Eskimos). The newly discovered species is considered to be closely related to Edmontosaurus but has a few anatomical differences, especially in the skull, and most noticeably in the mouth area. The discovery, a cooperative effort between the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Florida State University, took place in the Liscomb Bone Bed of the Prince Creek Formation along the Colville River more than 300 miles (500 kilometers) northwest of Fairbanks. The findings were published in Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, an international paleontology quarterly journal.To read about the findings and the best explanation, click on "Were Duck-Billed Dinosaurs Found in Alaska Warm Blooded?" Also, to see about how sneaky the owlhoots at in the evolutionary press can be on this subject, click on "Deceptive Paleontology Reporting".
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| Modified from Clker clip art |
The Australian Museum claims it has righted a wrong against one of its earliest curators Johann Ludwig Gerard Krefft whom they say was sacked for being—wait for it—an evolutionist!To read the rest, get ready to cry for the "victim" and click on "Was Gerard Krefft sacked for being an evolutionist?"
Known as Gerard Krefft, he was curator from 1864 to 1874, and was physically removed from office in a public and humiliating manner. He subsequently sued for unfair dismissal and the government of the day agreed to pay some compensation but—for various reasons including that he refused to accept the terms under which it was awarded—he did not receive the full amount.
The museum’s current director, Kim McKay, has given up her traditional office space and turned it into the ‘Krefft Room’ as a tribute to the zoologist and palaeontologist. Australia’s national broadcaster, the ABC, devoted almost seven minutes to that story on its 7.30 television program.
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| Image credit: Pixabay / skeeze |
The second law of thermodynamics has long been a topic of discussion in the evolution/creation debate. What is the second law of thermodynamics? Let us start with the first law of thermodynamics—that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. While the total amount of energy is conserved, energy can be transferred and converted into different forms. We observe that in these changes, energy becomes less useful to us. To quantify this observation, physicists define a term, entropy, to describe how un-useful energy is. Thermodynamic entropy is defined by energy divided by temperature, expressed on an absolute scale. The preferred unit of energy is the Joule (J), and the preferred absolute temperature scale is Kelvin (K), so entropy is properly expressed in J/K. The second law of thermodynamics can be stated a number of different ways. The simplest form is that entropy never decreases. We normally use the letter S to represent entropy, and the Greek letter ∆ to represent a change, so mathematically we express the second law of thermodynamics as ∆S ≥ 0.To finish reading this semi-technical article, click on "Does the Second Law of Thermodynamics Favor Evolution?". To further your education, I linked to additional material in these posts on the subject: "Evolution — It's Against the Law Part 1", "Evolution — It's Against the Law Part 2", and "Evolution — It's Against the Law Part 3". Part 3 is very interesting, but you need to be enlightened by Part 2 so you can get a good appreciation of the content.
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| Image modified from Cockerellites liops / National Park Service / PD (Usage of original does not imply endorsement of site contents) |
When describing so-called ‘transitional’ fossils, we often call such fossils ‘mosaic fossils’. What do we mean? Ryan B. from the United States writes:To see Shaun's response, click on "Mosaic fossils?"
Hi CMI, I have been reading some of your articles about mosaic fossils such as Archaeopteryx, Tiktaalik and the mudskippers and you say that mosaic fossils don’t qualify as transitional fossils. I am having trouble understanding the whole mosaic idea; if a fossil contains both fish and reptile features doesn’t that make them transitional? Same thing with archaeopteryx. I was talking to my brother’s friend who is going to med school and his professor showed him Archaeopteryx as “proof” of bird evolution and proceeded to show me how Archaeopteryx had bird and dino features. Can you explain to me how “Mosaic” features is not the same as transitional features? And also do evolutionists recognize this difference?CMI’s Shaun Doyle responds:
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| Comet Hale-Bopp / Credit: NASA |
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| Image from Clker |
Bodies bounce while jogging or performing any number of other vigorous activities, usually without getting dizzy. However, bodies get dizzy when they are "bounced" from the outside, like while on a boat or airplane. What's the difference? Researchers pinpointed amazing new details behind the mechanism that maintains balance during voluntary motion, but their notion of its origins clearly misses the mark.To read the rest, click on "Discovery: Spine Signals Ears to Maintain Balance".
The vestibular organ (VO) resides inside the semicircular canals of the inner ear and senses head motions in all directions and all six rotations. It must have a process to dampen its sensitivity when the body itself causes motion. Without this dampening function, intentional body movements would disrupt balance—imagine getting motion sick every time you go for a jog. How does your VO protect against self-inflicted motion sickness? The answer involves a mechanism with precision parts and precise timing that has every characteristic of fine-tuned, intentional design.
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| National Electrostatics Corporation 250kV accelerator mass spectrometer
in a biomedical laboratory. Image Credit: US Department of Energy |
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| Click for larger. |
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| Image: ClkerFreeVectorImages / Pixabay |
